Insomnia
by Miss Fenway
Summary: "What do you mean you can't sleep?"  Is there a more annoying question for an insomniac to here?  Probably not.  NO SLASH!


**A/N. I haven't been sleeping well at all lately because of some things going on in my life right now. My insomnia has never been as horrible as it is now and I think that's a reason I haven't been able to write lately. I'm too tired. So this is the utter crap I came up with as a result of my frustrations. It's just a little angsty. Decide for yourself who the boy is but remember that I afflicted James and Logan with insomnia. I don't own anything.**

_Insomnia – noun: Inability to obtain sufficient sleep, especially when chronic; difficulty in falling or staying asleep; sleeplessness._

The dictionary makes it sound so simple. But for those of us who know better, it's much worse. We have other words for our "inability to obtain sufficient sleep". Torment. Suffering. Hopelessness. Dread. Those hours we spend laying in the dark trying to drift off to our dreams if only for a little while. Wasted. This is what insomnia is really like:

It's late and you're tired because you didn't sleep well the night before. The book you're reading or the television program you're watching or the music you're listening to, isn't making sense anymore. It's all a blur that you're no longer absorbing. What's the point?

So you prepare for bed with trepidation because you know what's waiting for you. You go through the motions of showering, changing, brushing your teeth, and finally saying good night to your loved ones. All this time your thoughts are elsewhere as you wonder how bad it will be tonight. Will it take long to fall asleep? Will you wake up repeatedly? What dreams await?

The moment is inevitable though and finally you're laying in your bed, the room dark and silent, just the way you like it best. You glance at the clock to see that it's almost midnight and then you turn over on your side and close your eyes and try to steady your breathing.

But sleep won't come. Instead of relaxing like a normal person would when they're falling asleep, everything within you comes alive much to your dismay. Your hearing is so much sharper and you can hear every little noise both inside and outside of the house. Your eyes have already adjusted to the dark of your room and you can see shadows that you know to be your dresser and bookshelf but can't help thinking otherwise. You can feel your heart beat and your breathing has quickened in your night time anxiety. But that's not even the worse part.

The worst part is that your mind absolutely refuses to shut down. All the troubles and fears that you've kept quiet by being busy throughout the day attack you when you're the most vulnerable. These thoughts fill you and suffocate you in a quiet panic. You know that it'll be another long night.

So you try to distract yourself by thinking happier thoughts. It's impossible. You think of that paper you still have to start and how you have work the next afternoon. You think about all the things you meant to do earlier and never got around to. You wonder when you'll find the time to do everything that's on your list for tomorrow. You think of something somebody said to you and how much it hurt.

By now your mind is working overtime and you wish it was working so well when you took that test and failed it the other day. You were so tired and you couldn't think of any of the answers or find them anywhere in your textbook. The classroom lecture went right over your head because you were in such a daze that you only heard the voices and not the words.

You're really frustrated now and feel even worse when you look again at the clock to see that it's nearly 2:00 am now. You've been laying in bed for almost two hours now and as wide awake as your mind is, the rest of you is so utterly exhausted. Tears burn your eyes and tighten up your throat. You just want to go to sleep.

You've told others about your sleeping problems but they can't really understand unless they experience it for themselves. They laugh you off and tell you to do to the doctors and get something prescribed. But you would never do that because the thought of getting addicted to some sort of medication terrifies you and even now drives you further from sleep. You've taken cold or allergy medicine before but now nothing helps. You're on your own.

So completely alone. Throughout the day you go from seeking company to seeking solitude. But now, even though the rest of the house is fast asleep, you want nothing more than a friendly ear to listen to your troubles even though you would never pour them out with the brutal honesty that tempts you now. The loneliness is darker than your room or the night sky outside. It leaves you feeling empty and cold until there are brief moments when you feel as though you are literally the last person on the face of the Earth. It's agony.

You give up for the time being and switch on the lamp beside your bed, squinting as the bright light illuminates your room and casts away the unnerving shadows. You sigh and reach for your book to see if any of the words will get through to your tired brain and make you think of something else so you no longer have to dread the day ahead. Only two pages in and your eyes feel heavier than they did just minutes ago. You allow the sense of hope to fill you and think that maybe, just maybe, you might go to sleep now.

But as soon as you turn off the light, it's like the switch in your mind goes right back on. You grab your iPod and put it on shuffle because maybe you'll be able to drift off to the lyrics of a sweet, soothing song. The experiment ends with you ripping the earphones out of your ears and you are barely able to resist throwing the music device away for playing _Fix You _by Coldplay. As much as you love that song, the line about being so tired and being unable to sleep and being stuck in reverse, fits far too well. It feels like a slap to the face and it's the last thing you need tonight.

Eventually you do drift off into an uneasy slumber only to awaken once again, breathing heavily as the last remnants of a nightmare or anxiety dream cling to your scattered thoughts. Sometimes you have trouble separating your reality with your dreamworld and when you finally realize that you're awake, you breathe a simple prayer of thanks because you're just so relieved.

It's 3:30 am and you're grateful that it's the weekend because that means you can sleep until 10:00 or maybe even 10:30. By "sleep" you mean, "lay in bed in a state of exhaustion until you have to get up and start your day". If you fell asleep right now and by some miracle stayed asleep, you'd be looking at seven hours of sleep. That's not the eight hours that doctors recommend but it's better than the four to six hours that have become normal to you.

But you don't fall asleep right away because your mind is still thinking about that dream or maybe it's moved on to other things. Like how you should start that essay for your literature class or how you have a mid-term and final coming up in two different classes. This week is going to be a busy one and you wonder if you'll make it through in one piece.

You have to get through this week in one piece. You can't fall apart. There are people depending on you to get everything done. The pressure is threatening to drown you and even though you know you're on dry land right now, your lungs feel like they're burning for proper oxygen. Because everything, your thoughts, worries, tasks, everything, is like water that is filling your lungs instead of life giving air. You just have too much going on and it's slowly killing you.

This is when your migraine sets in. Thankfully, it's the one thing that isn't a very common occurrence. But you know it's because of your lack of sleep and you quickly realize that it's the type of migraine that goes away when you sit up. So even though it's four in the morning, you find yourself sitting up in bed with your aching head resting on your drawn up knees, because sitting up straight makes you dizzy. It's go away like everything else goes away. Eventually.

Finally. Finally, you sleep again. You're interrupted several times by more dreams that leave your heart racing and your mind a jumbled mess as you try to separate the dream from real life. You look at the clock every time you're awake. 5:00. 5:45. 6:30. 7:45. 9:00. At 9:00 you know that you should be getting up instead of lazing around in bed but you're just so tired. So you remain in bed until 10:15 when you're head begins to ache again, signaling the need for what gets you through the day: Caffeine.

You sit up slowly and stumble into the kitchen. As you manage to pour yourself a cup of coffee, somehow seeing through your eyes that are still half-shut, you just know that it's going to be one of those days where you feel constantly light-headed and weak. And yet, you only feel a twinge of dread because in the end it's far better than being unable to sleep the night away.

The day has come at last and you can distract yourself from all your worries by throwing yourself into your work or your hobbies. Anything works. It's all so simple now because as tired as you are, you can read and the words will tell a story. You can watch TV and understand that the home team is winning. You can listen to music and if you're alone, sing along to your favorite songs. The torture is over for hours now and you can relax.

As you move throughout the day, sometimes sitting down to rest, you're not sure if the day is flying by or dragging at the speed of a sloth, because really turtles aren't all that slow. You decide to be fair and say that it's doing both because who cares if that's impossible?

You get a 70 on your mid-term and somehow resist the urge to pull your hair out or bang your head against the wall. You start research for that paper in your psychology class until you realize that all the articles are starting to look the same and, oh hey you lost the articles you saved in your laptop's folder. Stupid technology. You try to start on your literature essay and a full hour passes until you snap out of your daze and notice that you still have a blank piece of paper. Writer's Block is the bane of your existence and you can't even write for enjoyment anymore. Dinner goes by and you wash the dishes, counting down the hours until you can go to bed, not sure if you're anticipating the moment or dreading it. You'll know when the time comes.

When the moment does come you know that you're dreading it just like every other night. You go through the familiar motions a little slower than usual as if you're subconsciously trying to delay the inevitable. But you still find yourself crawling into bed and you lay still for a full thirty seconds before it starts up all over again.

It's going to be _another _long night.

**A/N. So yeah. This probably sucked but I literally cannot write anything else. I'm really sorry for even posting this because you're just wasting your time. Um, oh and I have a request. I haven't been getting much feedback with any of my stories lately and I'm sorry my writing has been bad but what can I do to make it better? Thanks! Review? Maybe? I'll go. . . do school work maybe. Something useful. Yeah. Um, new BTR episode tomorrow! YAY!**


End file.
